


to be someone (that loves someone)

by ribcagedtart



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Day At The Beach, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29943171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribcagedtart/pseuds/ribcagedtart
Summary: A snapshot of something old, yet, simultaneously, new.
Relationships: Natsume Minami/Rokuya Nagi
Kudos: 8





	to be someone (that loves someone)

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely inspired by Utada Hikaru's "One Last Kiss". Please give it a listen as you read if you'd like to!
> 
> _"I hate when people take my picture," you say_  
>  _But I don't need any_  
>  _For you're already burned_  
>  _Into the projector in my heart._
> 
> \- _One Last Kiss,_ Utada Hikaru

The waves lap and tangle at Minami's feet like the white bedsheets at home, and through the whip of wind combing its fingers over his hair, he thinks he sees a thousand suns in Nagi's eyes when the late evening shadows hit just right.

(It's a dazzling sight.)

When the beach is quiet, save for the click and whirr coming from the shutter of the film camera in Nagi's hands, Minami pauses, and feels a seven year gap in his heart flicker, whisper-quick, to life in uneasiness. He may have had hundreds of lenses and eyes trained on him before under professional settings, but none come close to feeling as starkly personal as this; he almost wants Nagi to stop.

(He wants for the other glass shoe to finally, finally drop.)

"You took a picture of me, didn't you," he says, and pointedly does not phrase it as a question. Minami steps backwards into the water, letting the chill embrace his skin. 

The quirk to Nagi's lips is somewhat rueful as he pulls the camera strap away and rests the _Leica M5_ against his hip. Minami doesn't feel bad at all for causing it. "Just the one. That wasn't alright, though, was it, Natsume-shi?"

He hums. He has nothing to do with his hands, so he slips them into his jacket's front pockets, and pretends that he does not see the droop to Nagi's shoulders. It is beyond him, after everything, to simply give in without fair reason. It is not in him, after Haruki, to offer a softer truth. "It wasn't."

A gull cries out in the distance, faint and lonely, dipping away as the sunset hues throw the sky into a shade of orange that reminds him of the tangerines he peeled back last New Year's for Haruka, only for the younger boy to huff at ( _even as he quietly ate them_ ). The four of them in Zool had headed for Hatsumode after, then, and it is the jangle of shrine bells in his memory that brings him back to the present as it coincides with the shrill magical girl anime opening that Nagi uses as his cellphone's ringtone.

Nagi ducks his head and raises a hand in apology, hastily turning away to answer the call, and for a split second, Minami wishes that he would throw it into the ocean, instead. It is an irrational urge, one he could never explain, except feel as a knee-jerk reaction that he tamps down, firmly.

Natsume Minami has never thrown a single temper in his life.

(He never will.)

He closes his eyes and just lets it go with the wind.

When he opens them again, Nagi is done, peering at him with an uncharacteristically contrite expression, the sober one he had on, sometimes, when Nagi thought no one was near enough to notice in the months after returning from Northmarea, and that alone makes Minami crack a small smile bittersweetly on his lips.

How odd, that they could so be attuned to each other's idiosyncrasies like this.

"I do apologise, Natsume-shi," Nagi begins, "if my action earlier had offended you in any way. It wasn't my intention to startle you."

"It's fine." A flippant wave of the hand. It's a bad idea but Minami continues to stare at what remains of the suns; whatever left in the scorch of Nagi's gaze. "Ask me first next time, and I'll consider."

At that, Nagi perks up, like a puppy at the very first hint of its companion's forgiveness. He steps a little closer, as if he is a ship drawn in by its windsails, towards Minami, the lightness in his voice ever dancing. The rim of his camera glints in the dying light. "Fantastic! I'd regret it deeply if my error would have caused you to heavily revise any outings like this in the future, but here we are. There is a next time."

"Here we are, indeed," Minami agrees. "There _is_ a next time."

For better or for worse, that he does not say, but that is a question for a different time of day. For now, Minami bends down to pick up a piece of sea glass that's washed up along the shore and holds it up against the backdrop of the sky.

"It's as beautiful as you are, Natsume-shi," comes a cheeky quip.

Minami sighs and pockets the piece, tightly in his palm. "And you are a terrible flirt as always, Rokuya-san."

(For now, this is more than they will ever have.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
